People on Bondi Beach win the selfish and stupid award

It's not too many stockpiles of toilet paper that signify our problem. It's a hidden stockpile of stupidity.

Imagine being the Chief Medical Officer at this time. Poor sod. He's getting information from all over the world, from experts and agencies who exist to handle and respond to the situation we find ourselves in. And still, there are people who just don't listen or care.

People at Bondi Beach on Friday despite the coronavirus threat.Credit:AAP

The worst behaviour is from people who are returning from overseas or for other reasons have been told to self-isolate and don't.

They are wilfully putting their fellow Australians at risk. If you know someone like this, tick them off over the phone and then rub them off your contact list. They're selfish idiots, repositories of stupidity and you don't need to carry that baggage around for the rest of your life.

The people at Bondi Beach last week win the selfish and stupid award. We've all been asked to keep our distance, to limit our social interaction to help slow the spread. We thus contribute to flattening the curve so that our health system can cope. We will contribute to saving lives. But not those morons in Bondi.

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Then there's the rest of us, the public. Some have behaved stupidly. Some very badly. What have we become when old people need a special shopping time so they can buy essentials?

Unless you have no family and no friends you do not need to stock up on loo paper, rice or anything else. If you have to isolate yourself, any Aussie friend will pick up and deliver for you.

After the stupid come the know-it-alls. There will always be different points of view. But at times like these when there is community unease, it's not too much to ask that those views be shared with authorities rather than through the media. One almost gasps at the outlets that run alternative views from every Tom, Dick and Harry and then have a commentator spout that people are confused. No shit, Sherlock.

The classic was the doctor who prefaced his media comment with "I'm a doctor and ... " He may be a very good doctor, but he's not a demographer, nor a behavioural scientist. Nonetheless, he was happy to say that Australia and Italy had a very similar age profile and assert we should therefore be doing things differently. Importantly for him, we all had to know what he thought.

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Our age profile is actually much younger than Italy's and we live very different lives. City after city there is apartment block after apartment block. Hence the “passeggiata”. The cafes and the gelateria provide not just exercise, coffee and gelato but space. And space where you mingle. We have a healthy disdain for regulation, but Italians regard most of it as simply advisory notices. We are like chalk and cheese. But this doctor's view was shared widely in the media. Mums and dads with kids and elderly parents just don't need the confusion and uncertainty thus created.

Add to the seeming plethora of people wanting to go public with their view are some, thankfully not too many, in the media who see this problem we are all facing as nothing more than an opportunity to run daily comment on what the Prime Minister has done wrong.

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There's not one of these guys that could take on the job. They prefer a job that allows them to be like a kid at the Royal Easter Show or the Royal Melbourne Show taking pot shots and to be responsible for very little. We wouldn't elect them to run anything.

The Prime Minister, the cabinet, the premiers and health professionals are not sitting around spouting the first thing that comes into their head. They've got all the information and a lot of experts all working together. An enormous amount is being done to put us in the best possible position.

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The figures change daily but as of late last week, we had a testing rate surpassed only by South Korea and were way ahead of Britain, the US, Austria and France. Comparisons aren't always fair because of different testing criteria but we can be sure we're doing something right.

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We've introduced Telehealth and nearly 70,000 such services have been provided. We have about 140 respiratory clinics at state and federal level. They're in place. We ticked over 1000 cases on Saturday. It will increase but we are ahead of the game. It is going to get worse. How much worse depends in part on us.

It is a simple fact that your country needs you. You're not being asked to go to the front line as our health workers are doing every day. All you have to do is keep your distance, avoid crowds, wash your hands. Individually, we can all make a difference. It's a moving beast, the advice will change ... follow it.

Amanda Vanstone is a regular columnist and a former Coalition minister.